Field
The disclosed embodiments generally relate to techniques for connecting to Wi-Fi networks.
Related Art
While public Wi-Fi networks are increasingly available to provide Internet connectivity, a wireless device user often fails to take advantage of these Wi-Fi networks because (1) the user is unaware of a Wi-Fi network's existence, (2) the user wants to avoid using her device's Wi-Fi interface in order to save power, or most importantly (3) the user finds it too cumbersome to connect to a Wi-Fi network.
The steps involved in connecting to a Wi-Fi network include: manually waking the device's Wi-Fi interface, waiting for the Wi-Fi interface to come online, manually selecting the right Wi-Fi network to connect to, encountering a landing page that requests Wi-Fi credentials to connect to the Wi-Fi network, manually typing in the Wi-Fi credentials, and so forth. Faced with this tedious process, a user may opt instead to rely on a slower and more expensive source of Internet connectivity, such as the wireless device's cellular connection, or simply go without any connection at all. Thus, what is needed is a system that enables a wireless device to detect and connect to Wi-Fi networks with minimal user intervention.